De Blasio’s 2018 salary increase not sitting well with folks

by DCG 
deblasio
When’s the last time you received a 15 percent raise and were authorized to gift yourself that raise? It’s good to be a public servant!
From Fox NewsNew York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will kick off 2018 with a roughly 15 percent salary increase. The progressive Democrat, who currently makes $225,000 per year, will be sworn in to his second term on January 1.
Under legislation authorized by the mayor in 2016, he will see a $33,750 increase to $258,750 per year.
De Blasio’s pay hike alone is more than the annual salary of a minimum-wage worker in the city, the New York Post reported. The $33,750 boost is more than the annual salary of a full-time worker making the city’s roughly $13 minimum wage.
“Oh, that’s way, way too much money for the mayor,” said David Schermerhorn of VOCAL New York, a group that works with low-income New Yorkers. “That’s corporate America money.”
De Blasio authorized his cushy new salary two years ago by signing legislation that gave city pols a retroactive raise starting January 2016.
But he refused to accept any pay hike during his first term because he convened the advisory commission that recommended higher salaries for the city’s elected officials. When he signed the City Council legislation in February 2016, he said raising the mayor’s salary “is appropriate for the next term.”
City Council members ended up going $10,185 above the recommendation for their own salaries to give themselves a whopping 32 percent raise, from $112,500 to $148,500.
De Blasio’s billionaire predecessor Mayor Bloomberg took $1 a year in pay.
“The new salary is not out of line,” said E.J. McMahon, research director at the Empire Center for Public Policy, noting $258,000 is about equal to the $130,000 Mayor Koch got his last year in office after adjusting for inflation. “Koch, in retrospect, was worth it,” McMahon said. “Whether that applies to Bill de Blasio obviously is a matter of opinion.”
Cops’ union boss Pat Lynch is of the opinion that he is not. “Mayor de Blasio has once again demonstrated the height of hypocrisy,” the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association president fumed. “While he is among the highest paid mayors in the country, his police force is near the bottom. While he takes a 15 percent raise … he has offered the women and men who keep our streets safe 42 months of no raises.
De Blasio’s office had no comment.
DCG

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